


To Bare One's Concerns

by JadeClover



Series: star-hewn colossi [3]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien genitalia, Crude Humor, Discussions of Genitalia, Friends Being Incorrigible, Gen, Naked Hugging, Nudity, Xenobiology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-19 12:00:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12409929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeClover/pseuds/JadeClover
Summary: With five different species comprising the Paladins of Voltron, they are bound to have their issues, cultural misunderstandings, and...concerns. Some such concerns are resolved in formal meeting rooms—others are discussed in humid locker rooms, stark naked, while five dignified planetary leaders prove they are truly just a band of miscreants at heart.





	To Bare One's Concerns

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what I'm doing here, and I _certainly_ don't know what the POVs in this are doing, but this was fun to write. Enjoy!

Dripping wet and somehow with too few towels to go around ( _again_ ), the Paladins of Voltron find themselves in their personal changing room. The mission? Completed—a success. The showers? Done—warm water washed away sweat, grime and aches. The after-mission feast...? Unfortunately, that is postponed. The demands of leadership beckon them a little too urgently tonight.  
  
Any body-shyness between these five has long since been burned away in the fires of friendship. Blaytz, predictably, is the most comfortable with their group's habit of gathering naked at lockers and benches to dress, and just as predictably, Zarkon is still the least. It seems to be some lingering, inherent sense of propriety rather than any kind of personal embarrassment. Just as well—no one would last long here if they were embarrassed. Their boundaries have long since eroded to the point where one can stare at openly another and receive nothing but a raised eyebrow ( _from those that have them_ ) and a mild, teasing remark in return.  
  
Not that any of them stare often, but...  
  
A glance to the side. Yes, _again_. That is the fifth aborted, _downward_ glance from Zarkon this evening. What is troubling him...?  
  
Well, Alfor can guess easily enough. They've had this talk before, after all.  
  
He may be perfectly capable of letting his friend's preoccupation go unanswered, but on the ( _dubious_ ) grounds of _openness between comrades_ and _good, wholesome fun_ , he will gladly bring the matter to the fore. "Are you upset by my penis again, Zarkon?" he asks.  
  
Behind them, Blaytz splutters into laughter.  
  
The towel in Zarkon's claws may very well have puncture marks in it now. His ears have pinned back, darkened at the tips by the faint hint of a blush. "No."  
  
_Really._  
  
Alfor waits.  
  
Ears flicking discontentedly, Zarkon turns, a scowl on his face with suspicious undertones of an indignant frown. "It is just... _out there,_ Alfor."  
  
Alfor folds his arms. "Well, yes. It does that." They can't all have sheaths to keep them in, now, can they?  
  
Turning away, Zarkon scowls, his ears growing even darker.  
  
"It _is_ pretty unnatural," Blaytz says. Arms crossed, he has wandered over, still not making any move toward getting dressed.  
  
Zarkon lowers his poor, wounded towel. " _Thank_ you, Blaytz—"  
  
But Blaytz raises a hand. "Hold it there, One-Dick. You, too," he adds at Alfor, who snaps his jaw shut, frowning.  
  
A rumbled sigh. "This again, Blaytz?" But even Zarkon can see where this conversation is going, a long, spiraling descent into the kind of chaos only _this_ group can achieve.  
  
"I just can't see why you people only have one." Blaytz angles his head and freely examines Alfor's ( _singular, exposed_ ) anatomy and the sheath where Zarkon's own resides. ( _And_ yes, _there is only one. At least his friends pay too much attention to that to remember the sheath isn't all he has, thus sparing him twice their boisterous teasing—though Trigel, in some fit of madness, once tried to_ bond _with him over it. In a juvenile but entirely satisfying retaliation, he attempted to counter-bond over the more specific details of his species' reproductive processes. It is not_ his _fault she found the idea of live birth so disturbing..._ )  
  
"What do you even do with the other one?" Alfor asks, his head tilted though there is nothing to see.  
  
Blaytz winks. "That's for me to know. But try the porn networks, if you want. It'll give you ideas."  
  
Alfor's brow wrinkles—his nose, too. Alteans may be an adventurous, open-minded people, but Nalquodian pornography is often a little too much, even for them.  
  
And of course, there is Trigel, encouraging Blaytz as always: "Can you believe they don't even lay eggs, Blaytz?"  
  
"A tragedy." Sharp, white teeth gleam in a crooked grin.  
  
Blaytz is still standing naked, though the rest of them have at least shown some signs of getting dressed. Gyrgan is vigorously drying his fur, and Trigel has put her socks on. ( _She always starts with the socks._ Always. _Strange, but no longer a novelty after many decaphoebs. Her socks have patterns of some cute Dalteri creature on them, a personal secret her subjects are likely not privy to. Alfor is still weighing the benefit of telling them versus the very real diplomatic fallout from Trigel and her many, many,_ many _warships._ )  
  
"You still don't have two, Trigel," Blaytz adds, never one to let the matter lie ( _pun not intended in the case of Alfor and Gyrgan_ ).  
  
"I don't even have _one,_ " Trigel retorts. "And what's so great about two? Don't be a dick elitist."  
  
Spinning, his back rod-straight ( _pun still not intended_ ), Blaytz splutters, "I am not a dick elitist!"  
  
"You certainly seem to be," Alfor offers up, though the bemused tone takes any bite out of the words. Beside him, Zarkon has pointedly turned his massive, plated back and is retrieving his underclothes from the storage locker, by all appearances pretending this entire conversation is not happening around him.  
  
Blaytz's fins flutter, his lips suspiciously close to a pout. "Well, at least mine aren't so _small._ All two of them."  
  
Brows furrowed, Alfor glances down, then levels a stern finger in Blaytz's direction. "That is _not_ how these things work, and _you know it_." But the laugh still hasn't left his voice.  
  
At last Gyrgan's fur is dried, fluffed out all around him like some strange-looking cloud, and he wanders over. With the damp towel still hanging around his neck, he drapes a comradely arm over Alfor's shoulders. "Come, Alfor. We can still be friends. Let us ignore their _strange_ and _alien_ ways."  
  
Fully willing to leave these _barbarians_ behind, Alfor smirks and lets Gyrgan lead him off to the far corner of the changing room, as though this show of solidarity will somehow prove a point to them ( _rather than just further distancing him from the clothes he is really meant to be putting on,_ really, _he must be somewhere after this..._ ).  
  
Blaytz asks, "...But how can you be friends if Alteans don't even have tails?"  
  
Silence falls. Alfor turns; Blaytz is leaning back, arms behind his head, a far more confident posture than anyone without clothing should have a right to. Turning back, Alfor meets Gyrgan's gaze, and despite the humor glinting in both their eyes, the furred arm around Alfor's shoulder withdraws. They step apart.  
  
So it's every man, woman, and alternatively-gendered being for themself, then, is it? Very well. He can hold his own. Though _really,_ Alfor loves these people dearly, but he _does_ have somewhere to be tonight.  
  
Bare feet slapping against the floor, he returns to his locker and rifles through his clothes, and _of course_ —he's forgotten his socks and underwear again. He'll have to have Coran bring him some.  
  
But first, something he's been meaning to do...  
  
A swift movement, and Zarkon stiffens, the hard plates of his back digging into Alfor's cheek as Alfor does his best to wrap his arms around him. Zarkon is far too huge for this; it's impossible to do it properly...  
  
"...Alfor, really?"  
  
"Yes, really," he retorts. "It's your turn to give me a hug." Truthfully, no one has kept up with the "Hugging Alfor" chore chart for decaphoebs, but it always makes for a good excuse. He has such good friends. They indulge his tactile needs.  
  
"Must we do this while naked?"  
  
"Yes." Alfor leans further into Zarkon's back. "I have a state dinner to attend _right_ after this."  
  
A heavy, rumbled sigh. "Very well."  
  
Zarkon twists half around ( _but only half, as he is wary of the strange Altean anatomy still present_ ) and rests a large, clawed hand on Alfor's head. Like that odd creature his wife calls a pet, Alfor rubs his head against Zarkon's side—and in the process trails his drying hair over very ticklish skin.  
  
That hand on Alfor's head abruptly shoves him away, and Zarkon turns. "Trigel! It is your turn to hug Alfor." ( _Alfor created a "Skill at Hugging" hierarchy, and Trigel is Number Two, which will make her an appropriate substitute._ )  
  
Trigel tugs an undershirt over her head and stands, making grasping motions at Alfor. "Come 'ere."  
  
Alfor appears to be only a tick away from forgetting the danger of running on slick floors _again,_ and no one seems prepared to remind him.  
  
"You are all incorrigible," Zarkon mutters, but he still cannot hide a faint rumble of amusement as he secures the last of his clothing.  
  
"Yeah, that's why we like you," Trigel mutters, hopping after Alfor while trying to get her other leg into her pants. Alfor, circling around the opposite side of a very bemused Gyrgan, is speaking lowly into a communicator, keeping one wary, gleaming eye on her: _"Yes, Coran? I need you to bring me some underwear. And socks!"_  
  
Incorrigible.  
  
Shaking his head, Zarkon—the only one of these self-proclaimed scoundrels who has actually managed to dress himself—turns for the door and leaves. _He_ has matters of state to attend to as well, thank you.  
  
( _But for all the entirely predictable chaos it caused, he will still stand by the point that started it all: His friends are very_ strange and bizarre _alien creatures._ )

**Author's Note:**

> Come visit me on [tumblr](http://jade-clover.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
